Girl, Interrupted Details

Set in a New England psychiatric institution in 1967, this commendable drama from director/co-writer James Mangold has a similar agenda to Milos Forman's Oscar-winning classic One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, but never quite reaches the same peaks of poignancy. Mangold makes clever use of jarring narrative cuts to convey Winona Ryder's confused state of mind. The film is also extremely well cast. Oscar winner Angelina Jolie is mesmerising as a pushy, pouting troublemaker, and Whoopi Goldberg is also good value as a no-nonsense nurse. Yet there's a definite feeling the producers were hoping to set off brighter emotional fireworks than this well-intentioned but lightweight movie actually provides.

An only occasionally interesting rites-of-passage drama, contrasting two young women, one vulnerable, the other out-of-control; but it says little of interest about the times or the use of such institutions to dump those who did not accept the way things